R.A. McCandless's Blog, page 48

On Something?!

READ BOOK!I received a lovely review for Tears of Heaven over the weekend.
I wasn't thinking and started at book two!!! But will definitely go back and read book 1!Great read, great characters, and great story!!
I was able to follow along and even as a writer/reader of a different genre, I enjoyed it immensely.
The characters were believable, and the descriptions of the world were unquestionable.
R.A. McCandless is onto something here!

Not certain what Iâm onto.  Probably something illegal, b...

He was poisoned, stabbed, shot, hung, stretched,disembowe...

He was poisoned, stabbed, shot, hung, stretched,
disemboweled, drawn AND quartered!Sequels, second installments, book two.  There are a lot of things to be said about a follow-upâmost of them tend to be negative.  The second book is often like the sequel to a popular filmâit tries to capitalize on the success of the first, maintain the same qualities and, most importantly, pave the way for the crescendo of the finale.  Unless youâre George R.R. Martin and then screw you! &n...

McGuffins. McGuffins Everywhere!

Have I got a warehouse for you!An online discussion about McGuffins prompted this article.
Whatâs a McGuffin?  McGuffins are the things that makes the characters do things.  The late, great, Sir Alfred Hitchcock, who popularized the term, defined it as such:
It might be a Scottish name, taken from a story about two men on a train. One man says, "What's that package up there in the baggage rack?" And the other answers, "Oh, that's a MacGuffin". The first one asks, "What's a MacGuffin?"...

O' Shannara! Where Art Thou?

Please sir, may I have another magic sword?Right after I read Tolkienâs seminal work, The Lord of the Rings, I immediately ran down to my local B. Dalton bookstore to try to find something, anything, that was even remotely similar.  My hands stumbled upon Terry Brooksâ The Sword of Shannara.  The book had me at the cover, with an elf, a dwarf and a human all staring at a magical sword.
The fact that two of them were archers was sauce for the goose!
What I hadnât realized was that The...

Danish, and the Danes Who Speak It

Peering deeply doesn't help me understand.So thereâs this scene in this book, Hell Becomes Her , and the writer wanted to create a sense of confusion in the point-of-view (POV) character, Del.  Two other characters are speaking Danish while Del, who doesnât speak Danish, is listening.  Important information is being conveyed through Del picking up a word here or there, but mostly not understanding.
And it worked.
Readers were confused.
So confused, they actually went on Google Translate...

Be Aggressive, B-E Aggressive

. . . and then everyone dies!Write what you know.
Thatâs the old saw young, aspiring writers are given when theyâre first starting out.  But writing about washing dishes, or folding laundry, or driving a car only gets you so far.  Eventually, you want your character to put down the TV remote, strap on a pair of SIG .45s and go toe-to-toe with a Big Bad Badass straight from the deepest pits of Hell.
Or maybe thatâs just me.
The problem is, of course, that very few of us have real world...

Welcome to 2016—Four More Reviews

If reviews were cupcakes they'd taste this good!There are many nice things about the holidaysâwarm fires, good Scotch, children playing quietly on the 3DS they spent days and weeks begging and pleading for.  The best for a writer, especially an indie/small press author, is reviews.
Lots of reviews.
The more reviews the better.
Around 25 reviews, Amazonâs algorithm starts to include a book in the âAlso Boughtâ and âYou Might Likeâ categories.  These are helpful if you happen to be inter...

The Clock Man: and Other Stories - A Review

The Clock Man: and Other Stories by Eric Lahti is an excellent collection which both stands on its own for new readers, but also fleshes out the world of Henchmen for those who have been keeping up with the author.  Eight stories make up this collection, which takes Lahtiâs imagination and share it out with readers.
All of the stories feel like they can live and breathe within the same universe of interconnected worlds, which is no mean feat.  Lahti opens by providing us with a glimp...

In Which A Fan and Friend Totally Makes My Day

Happy LevelâDoing the Carlton!Iâve been anxious recently.  Not chew-the-fingernails-down-to-nubs freaked out, but certainly some edge-sitting distress.  Tears of Heaven always had the potential for a sequel, but it could easily have stood alone as a complete story.  I would have been very satisfied that it had seen the publishing light of day and told the tale of Del.
The fans started asking for more stories.
So I wrote another story.
Yes, of course.  As simple as thatâplus o...

Star Wars at 3.5

Are you implying I'm old?I was 3.5, living in Bountiful, Utah and my parents took me to see Star Wars on opening weekend. There was no “A New Hope” at that point.  It was simply Star Wars and all the literature and media coverage at the time will confirm that for you.  That’s not really important, unless you’re on a tearing rant about George Lucas.
I’m not.
Today.
Because of the social structure of the Salt Lake City valley, my parents took me to the theater on Sunday and walked right...